XXVII.

On the bleakness of my lot

   Bloom I strove to raise.

Late, my acre of a rock

   Yielded grape and maize.

Soil of flint if steadfast tilled

   Will reward the hand;

Seed of palm by Lybian sun

   Fructified in sand.

XXVIII.

CONTRAST.

A door just opened on a street —

   I, lost, was passing by —

An instant's width of warmth disclosed,

   And wealth, and company.

The door as sudden shut, and I,

   I, lost, was passing by, —

Lost doubly, but by contrast most,

   Enlightening misery.

XXIX.

FRIENDS.

Are friends delight or pain?

   Could bounty but remain

Riches were good.

But if they only stay

Bolder to fly away,

   Riches are sad.

XXX.

FIRE.

Ashes denote that fire was;

   Respect the grayest pile

For the departed creature's sake

   That hovered there awhile.

Fire exists the first in light,

   And then consolidates, —

Only the chemist can disclose

   Into what carbonates.

XXXI.

A MAN.

Fate slew him, but he did not drop;

   She felled — he did not fall —

Impaled him on her fiercest stakes —

   He neutralized them all.

She stung him, sapped his firm advance,

   But, when her worst was done,

And he, unmoved, regarded her,

   Acknowledged him a man.

XXXII.

VENTURES.

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

   For the one ship that struts the shore

Many's the gallant, overwhelmed creature

   Nodding in navies nevermore.

XXXIII.

GRIEFS.

I measure every grief I meet

   With analytic eyes;

I wonder if it weighs like mine,

   Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,

   Or did it just begin?

I could not tell the date of mine,

   It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,

   And if they have to try,

And whether, could they choose between,

   They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled —

   Some thousands — on the cause

Of early hurt, if such a lapse

   Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still

   Through centuries above,

Enlightened to a larger pain

   By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told;

   The reason deeper lies, —

Death is but one and comes but once,

   And only nails the eyes.

There's grief of want, and grief of cold, —

   A sort they call 'despair;'

There's banishment from native eyes,

   In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind

   Correctly, yet to me

A piercing comfort it affords

   In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the cross,

   Of those that stand alone,

Still fascinated to presume

   That some are like my own.

XXXIV.

I have a king who does not speak;

So, wondering, thro' the hours meek

   I trudge the day away,—

Half glad when it is night and sleep,

If, haply, thro' a dream to peep

   In parlors shut by day.

And if I do, when morning comes,

It is as if a hundred drums

   Did round my pillow roll,

And shouts fill all my childish sky,

And bells keep saying 'victory'

   From steeples in my soul!

And if I don't, the little Bird

Within the Orchard is not heard,

   And I omit to pray,

'Father, thy will be done' to-day,

For my will goes the other way,

   And it were perjury!

XXXV.

DISENCHANTMENT.

It dropped so low in my regard

   I heard it hit the ground,

And go to pieces on the stones

   At bottom of my mind;

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less

   Than I reviled myself

For entertaining plated wares

   Upon my silver shelf.

XXXVI.

LOST FAITH.

To lose one's faith surpasses

   The loss of an estate,

Because estates can be

   Replenished, — faith cannot.

Inherited with life,

   Belief but once can be;

Annihilate a single clause,

   And Being's beggary.

XXXVII.

LOST JOY.

I had a daily bliss

   I half indifferent viewed,

Till sudden I perceived it stir, —

   It grew as I pursued,

Till when, around a crag,

   It wasted from my sight,

Enlarged beyond my utmost scope,

   I learned its sweetness right.

XXXVIII.

I worked for chaff, and earning wheat

   Was haughty and betrayed.

What right had fields to arbitrate

   In matters ratified?

I tasted wheat, — and hated chaff,

   And thanked the ample friend;

Wisdom is more becoming viewed

   At distance than at hand.

XXXIX.

Life, and Death, and Giants

   Such as these, are still.

Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill,

Beetle at the candle,

   Or a fife's small fame,

Maintain by accident

   That they proclaim.

XL.

ALPINE GLOW.

Our lives are Swiss, —

   So still, so cool,

   Till, some odd afternoon,

The Alps neglect their curtains,

   And we look farther on.

Italy stands the other side,

   While, like a guard between,

The solemn Alps,

The siren Alps,

   Forever intervene!

XLI.

REMEMBRANCE.

Remembrance has a rear and front, —

   'T is something like a house;

It has a garret also

   For refuse and the mouse,

Besides, the deepest cellar

   That ever mason hewed;

Look to it, by its fathoms

   Ourselves be not pursued.

XLII.

To hang our head ostensibly,

   And subsequent to find

That such was not the posture

   Of our immortal mind,

Affords the sly presumption

   That, in so dense a fuzz,

You, too, take cobweb attitudes

   Upon a plane of gauze!

XLIII.

THE BRAIN.

The brain is wider than the sky,

   For, put them side by side,

The one the other will include

   With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,

   For, hold them, blue to blue,

The one the other will absorb,

   As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,

   For, lift them, pound for pound,